Rocky – How to win in Loss

It seems like winning and losing are opposites. Like there can only be a winner, if there is a loser. But this is America, the land of opportunity and possibility and quite often in life, are the same people we call losers, the same people who go home at night feeling like they just won something. We were watching the first Rocky movie (Not Rocky V, never watch Rocky V) and at the end, Rocky loses the fight to Apollo. But Rocky won his own personal fight, trying to make it all 15 rounds with Apollo. He reached his own goal which is more important than the goals set upon you by others.

So anyway, my mom and I were squaring up, I was grounded, and she was… The grounder. So the punishment was for one week starting Sunday May 18, and supposed to end Sunday May 25. I lost my car, so I had to Penny board to and from school each day, I didn’t get allowance, and I couldn’t go out to hang with my friends. And I kid you not when I say this is the worst weekend I’ve had in like, forever. Breaking up with the girl I was in love with led to a better weekend than this, that’s how bad it was. So I thought that if I worked really hard on Saturday, like putting up the curtains, mounting the mail organizer, cleaning my room, vacuuming, that my mom would completely forget that I was grounded just like all my friends moms do. And it got to around 3, and I asked my mom to go out and she laughed and said, it hasn’t been a week yet. And I was thinking… If you weren’t going to let me get off easy then why did you keep having chores for me to do. Whatever though, it was still within the week, reasonable enough right. But here’s the thing, Monday came, Memorial Day, and I was supposed to be off the hook and go about my life having fun with my friends and making memories. So I go and get my haircut, I put on my hanging out clothes, I shop with my momma so that she sees I’m still a good kid and that I love her and cherish her. And we’re Sam’s Club which is right round near my friends house so I say “Can I go hang out with Aria?” And she says no. And she proceeds to tell me that she’s happy that she has her old helpful and kind son back and doesn’t want to risk losing that. And on the outside I’m good. I’m real good. I look like good I didn’t want to go hang with him anyway. You know I wanted to spend time with you mom I love you. But on the inside I’m hurting. The two days prior were torture. It’s like my phone was a few months old so I know it’s tricks. I’ve been rocking Clan Wars for months now so I’m over the hype. I played all my games and I still sucked at them so I was over them. I heard my whole playlist of 600 songs multiple times and I could sing along with every song so Karaoke no longer was fun. I had nothing to do and my mom was telling me that I was doomed to another day of boredom.

Just because you win, doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t won more.

I won, I was ungrounded, I was Apollo. But really, my mom won. She was Rocky. She showed that I was stoppable. That I was not as great as I thought I was. She showed she would go the distance and not let me off easy like I thought. And in Rocky Two when I asked to hangout when I was ungrounded, she knocked me out by saying no anyway.